Click here to access the updated Reaching the Nations country profile for Equatorial Guinea - a small nation in Central Africa inhabited by approximately 800,000 people. Distance from the nearest mission headquarters, a comparatively small population, corruption in government, use of Spanish as the primary language for inter-ethnic communication, and a lack of local members who have joined the Church abroad and returned to Equatorial Guinea all appear factors that have delayed the establishment of the Church notwithstanding a predominantly Christian population, no societal abuses of religious freedom, and no legal barriers that prevent a Church establishment. The creation of the Cameroon Yaounde Mission in July will likely be an important impetus for a Church establishment due to more mission resources in the region. See below for the Future Prospects section of this article:
Definite opportunities exist for the establishment of congregations and mission outreach in Equatorial Guinea, and some Latter-day Saints are known to live in the country. Other denominations have taken advantage of the opportunities for religious freedom and proselytism and have experienced rapid growth, whereas The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not yet utilized these opportunities. Too long a delay may result in missing a window of religious freedom, or entering under circumstances of decreased receptivity due to increasing materialism or an environment in which religious interest has waned and most religious seekers have already been discipled into other denominations. Nonetheless, there appear to be no specific plans for the Church to enter Equatorial Guinea at present. The creation of the Cameroon Yaoundé Mission in 2020 may present an adequate impetus to permit mission and area leadership to seriously consider the establishment of the Church in Equatorial Guinea.
28 comments:
I think this assessment is built on flawed understandings of religious movement and change. Maybe I have a unique perspective because my grandmother was Jehovah's Witness as a child and later Jewish before she joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I have known other former Jehovah's Witnesses in the Church.
John PL: I am not tracking what your comment is in reference to.
I met one person from Guinea Equatorial (Spanish), named Filomena. She reminded me of youth from Hispaniola. She worked abroad. I hope elders or sisters go to Bioko or Rio Muni soon.
I think that goes back to other content threads from earlier posts.
Under President Nelson there have been 35 new temples announced. There were only 18 temple worldwide when I was born in October 1980.
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Hubert: what do you think of the Book of Mormon?
Matt, I know we just finished the New Years holidays, Is it too early to ask if you will post an updated list of the April 2020 Conference "Potential New Temples" map with new predictions?
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1W60CDwd4qDDMA3tW74z8g-2WxNw&ll=-3.81666561775622e-14%2C0&z=1
I'm interested to see your new insight into the next round of Temple announcements. I'm sure many here are anxious to hear your thoughts also.
Thank you.
P.S. I'm sure you are hard at work updating the Countries profiles in cumorah.com, so I would understand if you haven't put much thought into the updated list yet.
I have now decided to put both Maputo Mozambique and Beira Mozambique on the temple prediction list. I know it is a bit on the crazy side, but I would have said Port Moresby was a crazy temple prediction 6 months ago.
Hey, Chris! Wanted to let you know that I am also looking forward to Matt's thoughts on next April as far as new temples are concerned. But I am also still waiting to compare my data on the new list of the top ten nations with the strongest Church presence without a temple to whatever actual data Matt might have. In either case, though, I can understand him wanting to focus on the country profiles for now, given his previously-mentioned hope to have a new edition of the Church Growth Almanac published within the next year or two.
JPL, I believe that both Beira and Maputo will have temples in the near future. And with the recent temples announced for elsewhere in the Africa West Area, Maputo is a higher prospect on my personal list than it was a couple of conferences ago. Personally, I don't know what to make of Nelsonian temple announcements now. They held to patterns to a very specific point, and then, that was no longer the case. April of last year marked the first time (of which I am aware) since the Hinckley-era building boom when two temples had been announced for the same geographical area at the same time. Six months later, two temples were announced for two areas each. If President Nelson continues or expands on that in April, we may or may not see more than one temple announced in a single state outside the "Mormon corridor" or a single nation outside the United States. The unpredictability of those announcements as far as general or specific patterns is part of what makes looking at the future prospects so much fun.
I know that some have been blindsided by quite a few Nelsonian picks, but Port Moresby has been on Matt's list a time or two in the recent past, and around the same time I first began sharing my thoughts about future temple prospects on my blog, I was advised of the fact that, as was the case in Auckland New Zealand and as is reportedly the case in Managua Nicaragua, the Church had land in Port Moresby that would almost certainly be used for a temple when the right conditions necessitated such an announcement. After I heard that report, I put Port Moresby on my list, and there it remained until that prospect was announced.
So if any of us have any future temple prospects on our personal lists that do not get announced as imminently as we'd hoped or thought, I'd encourage us all to hold on to such locations and to keep them on our lists, since there will almost certainly be temples in all such locations someday, and perhaps sooner rather than later, especially at the rate President Nelson appears to be going in that respect. Hope these thoughts, such as they are, are helpful to all who read them.
Also, reported today, regarding the Pacific Area day of Fast :
https://www.thechurchnews.com/leaders-and-ministry/2020-01-06/pacific-area-presidency-expresses-gratitude-fast-australia-171152
Maybe fill me in, but what do you think as to why Mozambique has a better chance for better Church growth (i.e. two temples) than its Portuguese cousin Angola on the other ocean?
Eduardo, I don't presume to speak for James, but I'll offer my opinion on the matter. I don't have any idea why the gospel has not grown as much in Angola as it has in Mozambique. As of the end of 2019, Angola had about 3,000 members and one stake and Mozambique had about 12,500 members and three stakes. Mozambique also has 8 Family History Centers, whereas Angola only has one. One reason for the slow growth in Angola may just be the inertia that hasn't quite taken hold yet like in other African countries. I would be surprised to see two temples announced in Mozambique in the same conference. I could totally see one in Mozambique and one in Madagascar, however. Just my $.02. I hope that Angola starts to see more success, though, because it is a poor country and travel from Luanda to Kinshasa (12 hours) is very difficult.
I think that Angola, along with Cameroon, is the next African country to make a big leap in Church growth. In fact, I think this is already unfolding, and it's hard to consider a country that has been putting up uninterrupted double-digit member growth rates every year since 2009 to be lacking in any way. I can see a second stake in Luanda in the next two to three years, and possibly a small temple shortly thereafter (due to distance and travel expense, as has been mentioned).
Maputo will probably get a temple a couple of years before Beira.
Eduardo, I am not sure whehter your question was directed to John Pack Lambert or to me, but I have some insight on it either way. Firstly, speaking personally, I do not believe that the prospect of temples in both Maputo and Beira are equally imminent. I fully anticipate that Mozambique's first temple will be built in Maputo, with a temple for Beira coming along at a later time. Others might disagree, but I also recall a time when someone told me that the first temple in Sierra Leone would be likely built in Bo before Freetown, but we saw Freetown announced first. My personal research on temples for the moment seems to indicate that, outside the United States or other areas of strength (South America, Africa, the Philippines, etc.), the likelihood of multiple temples being announced in a single nation or region at the same time is not as high as it may seem. Others might disagree with that asssesment based on their own research or impressions, which is not problematic, but hope that explains my rationale regarding Mozambique.
Next, as far as the question of whether both Beira and Maputo would get temples before one is announced for Angola, I wouldn't say that's an accurate assessment. I could see the Church announcing and beginning construction on a temple in Maputo, and, at a later time, announcing a temple in Angola, then, once those temples (and perhaps others) are further along in construction or are in operation, one might be coming for Beira. But I wouldn't be shocked if my assessment in that respect changes either. On the same day we here in Utah observed Pioneer Day last year (July 24), the South African edition of the Newsroom released the following article that illustrates how the Church is growing rapidly in Mozambique:
https://www.mormonnewsroom.co.za/article/the-church-is-growing-rapidly-in-mozambique
Above and beyond that, however, these are the updated statistical profiles the Church released on Angola and on Mozambique following the April 2019 General Conference (with all such profiles to be updated following the release of the 2019 Statisitical Report this April):
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/angola
https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/facts-and-statistics/country/mozambique
By way of comparison, Mozambique has 3 stakes to Angola's 1, more than twice the total number of congregations, and around 6 members to every 1 in Angola. The only way in which they were equal in terms of those profiles is in the total number of operating missions. And although Matt would, as the expert, need to confirm this, unless the data I have compiled is mistaken, Mozambique also now ranks sixth on the list of the top ten nations with the strongest Church presence without a temple, while, based on the data I mentioned for Angola, several other nations will need to have a temple announced before that nation even gets close to inclusion on that top ten list. So with all of this in mind, Mozambique will definitely get a temple before Angola, and may have 2 announced (for both Maputo and Beira) or in various stages of construction by the time one is built in Luanda. The Lord has been known to surprise us, but that seems the likely scenario. Hope this information helps.
While reading these comments, I was reminded about the reactions of some members in Arizona when President Monson made his first temple announcements as Prophet, in late April 2008 (a few weeks after General Conference), for The Gila Valley and Gilbert, Arizona. Both locations were kind of surprising. At the time, Arizona already had two temples: Mesa (1927) and Snowflake (2002). Everyone kind of believed that Tucson would get the third temple, but there was sensational speculation that the Gilbert/Queen Creek area could get one too, with all the growth it was experiencing. When Gilbert actually did get a temple, members on the west side of the Phoenix-metro area and in Tucson felt slighted, per their comments to the newspaper message boards. They didn't understand why Gilbert would get a temple, which is only 13 miles from the Mesa Temple, when other parts of the state still had to travel farther (let's be honest, these are Western U.S. temple travel problems, which are nothing to what members in other parts of the world currently have to deal with, like in Ulaanbaatar or Iquitos.) Then a month later, a temple was announced for northwest Phoenix... and members in Tucson plummeted into depression. One member said they didn't believe Tucson existed in the eyes of the church. But then a temple for Tucson was announced in 2012. So, in time all the places that need temples will receive them.
Ulaanbaatar and Iquitos are on my short list.
The part of this blog post on FamilySearch this week may have some bearing on possible temples, the site is being rolled out in 19 more languages early this year. Some of the languages just got a temple, others have been on the radar for years, although a few are missing that are in areas that got temples, this shows that things are picking up.
https://www.familysearch.org/blog/en/whats-new-in-familysearch-2020/
This makes FamilySearch possibly second only to MyHeritage in the number of languages supported for using and navigating the site. Although it is possible Ancestry may have subsites in as many, I do not have that avaiable. MyHeritage is in 42 lanuages.
@Gnesileah
Mongolia's been in the top two of my temple wishlist for a while now, too (Next to Missoula, Montana). Hope it gets one soon.
I too have had Ulaanbaatar on my list of places where I see a temple being built soon. With about 12,000 members and 2 stakes, there is definitely enough membership there to justify it. If the tithing, temple recommends status, and activity rates are sufficient I am sure they will be blessed with one soon. It is over 1,800 miles to Hong Kong which is now closed for renovation. The next closest temple is the Seoul Korea Temple at 1,200 miles. I know that having a temple in their midst would greatly help the Saints there and also help the Church to achieve faster and stronger growth. With over 1.5 million people in Ulaanbaatar, there is definitely a lot of potential for missionary work. A temple would create a lot of buzz and positive energy in that country.
Well from pure stake count Kampala should have gotten a temple before Port Moresby. Although there is an even more complex number that I think has some validity which is stake years for the region. Kampala has fairly new stakes, while the Port Moresby stake has been there about 20 years.
Of course there is virtually no system I know that makes sense of Phenom Penh getting a temple. It may not be as close to Bangkock as I sometimes think, and clossing that border may be much much harder than crossing from Uganda to Kenya, but Phenom Penh, Okinawa and Winnipeg tell me that any area over 200 miles from the nearest temple that has at least 1 stake has a potnetial to get a temple. I am not even sure if it has to be 200 miles.
It might be 200 miles/some other factor of time and some other factor of local purchasing power travel cost.
Mozambique has 4 stakes and 2 missions with indications of growth being moving forward. Angola only has 1 stake. Another factor involved that I have not fully figured though is how hard by time, distance, cost and crossing the border it is to get from Luanda Angola where the 1 stake is to Kinshasa.
However Mozambique has 2 stakes that are older than any stake in Angola. Stake presence and stake age are 2 key components in predicting temples. For a given level of isolation every pre-1900 stake cluster has a temple. The announcement of the Feather River Temple is moving us towards every pre-WWII stake cluster having a temple. This means we might not ever get every stake in Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and even Arizona that is that old having a temple, but that looking at where stakes were when WWII started and picking out the isolated ones will give you at least a clue where some new temples will be placed.
Moving the cut off from 1939 to 1950 is one reason some of us think Jacksonville Florida will be the next temple announced in the south-east US. Jacksonville is not only the oldest stake in the south-east US but was the first stake in the eastern US built up and with a leadership that was local rooted converts or multi-generation members as opposed to primarily Utah expatriates.
JMR,
Do you have any clue if 12 hours is the actual time used, or if it is assuming one brisks through the international border, and if it assumes the later, is that actually going to happen or are delays likely.
Another factor is that with 12 hour travel members are most likely to travel as a group to the tmeple. If that is the case I would imagine that they are more likely to be delayed since as a group, say on a charters bus, you will have to wait for everyone to clear customs.
I once read an blog post by a couple serving from the US as missionaries in Cameroon about the trip to the Aba Nigeria Temple. It took way longer than on paper it should have because the cars got stuck in mud roads and they had to push the cars part of the way. The couple also was not able to go all the way to the temple because Nigeria would not let them in, I think probably because they only had a visa from Cameroon and they would have had to pre-apply to go to Nigeria.
There are probably two reason why the Church is more established in Mozambique. The Church in Mozambique, at least in Beira, is largely the work of Francisco Dique Sousa. His son-in-law Chico Mapenda joined the Church in East Germany where he had been sent by the Mozambique government to train in the ways of Marxist-Leninist socialism. Mapenda was baptized in January 1990 and had to return to Mozambique shortly after German reunification in Ocotober 1990. Mapenda shared was not authorized to baptize people but he shared the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with his father-in-law who had been a Proestants minister (Fancisco Dique Sousa) and a brother who was a prostestant missionary.
Sousa shared the restored gospel of Jesus Christ with many people in his village of Marromeu, not far from Beira. When missionaries finally arrived in the Beira area in 1998 they found 500 people waiting to be baptized. The people had organized unofficial church units and built straw-tathced huts for the Church to meet in. Another one of Sousa's sons-in-law was the first branch president in Beira and when the Beira district was organized Mapenda was first counselor in the district presidency.
Actually I think the Wikipedia article is a bit off on dates (in part probably my fault). This 2013 Church News article "Miracles in Mozambique" https://www.thechurchnews.com/archives/2013-07-27/miracles-in-mozambique-44861 talks about Maria Dique. She is said to have "learned about the gospel from her brother-in-law who learned of the gospel from German members". She is the daughter of Frnacisco Dique Sousa and the sister of Mapanda's wife. Her husband Chico Casse Morgan joined the Church at the same time as her, but was dead by 2013. There are too many names and repeating names floating around. In Maria Dique's case she was baptized by missionaries based in Zimbabwe. By 2002 Mozambique was part of the South Africa Johanesburg Mission with missionaries being called to serve there Portuguese speaking.
Sister Dique's son, and thus I believe Francisco Dique Sousa's grandson, Jorge Chene Maunga, was the first missionary to be called to serve from Mozambique. At this point there are officially too many names and name changes for me to follow. The 2013 Church News article does not give a time frame as to when Brother Maunga served as a missionary, in 2013 he was branch president. His branch was one of only 2 with Church built meetinghouses in Mozambique at the time.
A big holdup in baptising in Mozambique is the law of chastity. The tradition of lobolo or the bride price makes marriage out of the poors ability to achieve. Even when they reject lobolo the legal fee to get married is hard to afford for many in the very marginal economy of Mozambique.
Angola on the other hand was wracked with civil and international wards, and it was not really until about 2010 that the Church even begun to build a base in Angola. So essentially the Church is roughly 20 years further along in its history in Mozambque than Angola.
Here https://www.thechurchnews.com/archives/2010-01-29/country-information-mozambique-67310 is a fuller history. Mapenda was visted by Elder Tingey in Mozambique in 1991. His brother Gimo Mapenda was not baptized until 1996. Beira did not get a branch until 1999. Maromeu got a branch in 2000 and Francisco Dique Sousa was the first branch president.
Brother Maounga began his mission in 1999.
Beira got a stake in March 2017. None of the stake presidency have names that connect them with Sousa, Dique or Mapanda, but I do not know who the patriarch was, and as I have already said these Mozambique names confuse me in unexpected ways.
OK, I am now officially confused. This https://www.mormonnewsroom.co.za/article/great-blessings-experienced-in-beira--mozambique- newsroom article suggests that the stake was organized in 2015 not 2017. Not only that, it puts the date in 2015, and they use different orthgraphy.
OK, I figured it out. The Beira Stake was organized in 2015. The Beira Mozambique Manga Stake was organized in 2017, but for some reason when that happened the Beira Mozambique Stake was again reported as a new stake. This might be because the Beira Mozambique Manga Stake retained most if not all the old stake presidency.
When the stake was split in 2017, Elias Joaquim who had been 2nd counselor was made president of the Beira Stake. The 1st counselor in the Beira Stake Presidency when first organzed was according to the photo essay Freeman Dickie. However they also later show a picture of Maria Dickie-Soza, so I am sure we have run into a problem of inconsisted orthography. So his name should be Freeman Dique, and he is almost certainly part of that family.
I actually would guess Beira gets a temple before Maputo. Beira got a second stake first. At present both esseially have 2 stakes, so whichever one gets a 3rd stake first is going to go on my list of most likely to get a temple.
The other reason is Beira is far more central in the country. Maputo is almost into South Africa, while Beira is only the 4th largest city in Mozambique. We have to consider that Beira is about the middle of the country, and the 3rd largest city Nampala in the north.
On the other hand Maputo and Matola are the only cities in Mozambique with over 1 million people. Matola is a suburb of Maputo. We are talking of a driving distance of 756 miles. Neither city getting a temple will really help the other. In fact Beira is only 353 miles from Harare. That is still a huge distance, but less than half. However Maputo is only 280 miles from Johannesburg, so at least by distance a temple in Beira will not help Maputo. The difficulty in going to South Africa, especially with their not wanting to be overwhelmed by economic migrants from neighboring countries might make travel to Beira easier even if longer.
Just looking at the figures I have it seems that Beira and Maputo getting temples are events totally indepdent from each other and will happen in one or the other with no effect from the other. The two districts in Mozambique are in Nampala in the far north and in Chimoio in the interior not too far from Beira. If districts weigh at all in temple placement this would seem to favor Beira.
Phoenix was announced 28 days after Gilbert and Gila Valley. So in less than a month 3 more temples were announced for Arizona.
Freetown to Bo is a distance of 110 miles. Still a long way to travel with at times difficult roads and especially costly if you have to use public transit or do not at least have your own car and so have to charter a bus or such. Monrovia is 322 miles from Freetown. So all 11 stakes in Sierra Leone and Liberia are less than half the distance from the Freetown temple that stakes in Beira or Maputo would be if a temple was built in just one of those cities.
If we are going to bring temple worship to the people, thinking 1 temple in Mozambique is any sort of solution is a false notion.
The new family tree languages do not include any indigenous languages of Africa. It should clearly be available in Swahili and Malagasy and probably in Yoruba and Akan. Zulu and Xhosa are also ones I think it should be available in.
JPL, if we only consider stake count between Papua New Guinea and Mozambique, you'd be correct. But according to Matt's most-recently published list of the top ten nations with the strongest Church presence without a temple in any phase, Papua New Guinea had the edge on any other nation in terms of the total number of both stakes and districts, the number of congregations, and the number of members involved. The same was true for the other nations you mentioned due to where they were on the top ten list just before they had temples announced. And the announcement of a temple for Port Moresby may have surprised others, but it did not surprise me.
I say that because, in 2015 or 2016, when I shifted the focus on my blog to include quite a bit more content on temple construction, I was advised not long after that land had been set aside for future temples in Managua Nicaragua, Auckland New Zealand, Port Moresby Papua New Guinea, and Bentonville Arkansas, among other locations. As we now know, temples have been announced in all four locations. And it has been confirmed that the Auckland Temple will be built on that reserved land, so I have no doubt the same will prove true for Port Moresby, Managua, and Bentonville.
As far as the merits of temples in both Beira and Maputo, I am in no way dismissing the prospect that both will have temples at some point. What I meant to convey is that I don't believe both prospects will be announced simultaneously, or that both are imminently likely. I personally favor Maputo, since it is the capital city, even though, as you said, Beira is more central. If my memory serves me correctly, in previous threads on this very blog, when the subject of a temple in Sierra Leone came up, some expressed the opinion that the first temple for the nation would likely go to Bo rather than Freetown. We know now that those lines of reasoning were different from what the Lord had in mind.
So I will be interested to see whether Mozambique's first temple will go to Beira (as you and others have recently theorized) or whether it will go to the capital city of Maputo (for which my personal research on that question has led me to conclude may be more likely). Also, I am assuming that at least one metric that is considered fairly consistently in terms of temple announcements is the mileage, expense, and rigors of travel from any of the Saints to their currently-assigned temple.
I also find in my own personal research that just looking at one metric (such as only the number of stakes) is not as effective in terms of my ability to successfully predict temple locations. So my recommendation to anyone weighing candidates on their own list is to use at least 3-4 metrics in terms of those determinations. And each of us will approach the process of such analysis differently. And personally, I have never done my own lists exactly the same way every time. But I am grateful for outlets such as the threads of this blog, and in posts and comments on my own blog, where those ideas, rationales, and processes can be discussed in-depth. Just some additional thoughts from me, for whatever they may be worth.
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